Top rankings for Nepal

Wikipedia article:

Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article:

Nepal ( ), officially the Federal
Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South
Asia and the world's youngest republic.
It is
bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of
India. With an area of and a population of
approximately 30 million, Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country
by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest
metropolitan city.

Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture,
and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the
world's ten highest mountains, including the highest, Mount Everest. The fertile and humid south is heavily
urbanized. By some measures, Hinduism is practiced by a greater majority of
people in Nepal than in any other nation. Buddhism, though a minority faith in the country,
is linked historically with Nepal as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, who as the Buddha
Gautama gave birth to the Buddhist tradition.About half of the
population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a
day.

Etymology

Nepal Bhasa origin

The word
"Nepal" is believed by scholars to be derived from the word "Nepa:"
which refers to the Newar Kingdom, the
present day Kathmandu
Valley. With Sanskritization, the Newar word Nepa
became Nepal. The Newars of present day Nepal, refer to all the
inhabitants of Kathmandu valley and its peripheries (called
"Nepa:") before the advent of Shah dynasty.

Ne Muni

History and local traditions say that a Hindusage named "Ne" established himself at the
valley of Kathmandu during prehistoric times and that the word
"Nepal" came into existence as the place protected ("pala" in
Sanskrit) by the sage "Ne". The etymology of the name Nepal means,
"the country looked after by Ne".

He used to perform religious ceremonies at Teku, the confluence of
the Bagmati and Bishnumati rivers. He is said by legend to have
selected a pious cowherd to be the first of the many kings of the
Gopala Dynasty. These rulers are said to have ruled Nepal for over
500 years. He selected Bhuktaman to be the first king in the line
of the Gopal (Cowherd) Dynasty. The Gopal dynasty ruled
for 621 years. Yakshya Gupta was the last king of this
dynasty.

According to Skanda Purana, a
rishi called "Ne" or "Nemuni" used to live in Himalaya. In the
Pashupati Purana, he is mentioned as a saint and a
protector. He is said to have practiced penance at the Bagmati and Kesavati rivers and to
have taught his doctrines there too.

Derived from Sanskrit, Nepali has roots in Sanskrit and is written
in Devanagari script. Nepali is the official national language and
serves as lingua franca among Nepalis of different
ethnolinguistic groups. Hindi and related regional dialects Awadhi,
Bhojpuri and Maithili are spoken in the southern Terai Region. Hindi is also widely understood
by the many Nepalis who have lived in India. Many Nepalis in
government and business speak English as well. In the capital
Kathmandu, Nepali, Nepal Bhasa (the Newar language) and English are the most widely understood
languages.Dialects of Tibetan are spoken in and north of the
higher Himalaya where
standard literary Tibetan is widely understood by those with
religious education. Local dialects in the Terai and hills
are mostly unwritten with efforts underway to develop systems for
writing many in Devanagari or the Roman alphabet.

History

Prehistory

Neolithic tools found in the Kathmandu
Valley indicate that people have been living in the
Himalayan region for at least 9,000 years. It appears that
Kirant ethnicity people were the first people
to settle in Nepal and ruled Nepal for about 2,500 years.

Ancient

Terai News writes, "Nepal has been highlighted for the
last several centuries in Indian Sanskrit
literature like ‘Skand Purana’.‘Skanda Purana’ has a separate volume known as ‘Nepal
Mahatmya’, which explains in more details about the beauty and
power of Nepal." Nepal is also mentioned in Hindu scriptures such as the Narayana Puja
and the Atharva Siras (800-600 BC). Around 1000 BC, small
kingdoms and confederations of clans arose in the region. From one
of these, the Shakya confederation, arose a
prince named Siddharta Gautama
(563–483 BC), who later renounced his royalty to lead an ascetic
life and came to be known as the Buddha ("the enlightened one"). The 7th Kirata
king, Jitedasti, was on the throne in the Nepal valley at the time.
By 250 BC, the region came under the influence of the Mauryan empire of northern India, and later
became a vassal state under the Gupta
Dynasty in the fourth century AD. In the fifth century, rulers
called the Licchavis governed the
majority of its area. There is a good and quite detailed
description of the kingdom of Nepal in the account of the renowned
Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk Xuanzang,
dating from c. 645 AD.

The Licchavi dynasty went into decline in the late eighth century
and was followed by a Newari era, from
879, although the extent of their control over the entire country
is uncertain. By the late 11th century, southern Nepal came under
the influence of the Chalukaya Empire of
southern India. Under the Chalukayas,
Nepal's religious establishment changed as the kings patronised
Hinduism instead of the prevailing Buddhism.

Medieval

By the early 12th century, leaders were emerging whose names ended
with the Sanskrit suffix malla ("wrestler"). Initially
their reign was marked by upheaval, but the kings consolidated
their power and ruled over the next 200 years; by the late 14th
century, much of the country began to come under a unified rule.
This unity
was short-lived; in 1482 the region was carved into three kingdoms:
Kathmandu, Patan, and
Bhaktapur.

Kingdom of Nepal

After centuries of petty rivalry between the three kingdoms, in the
mid-18th century, Prithvi Narayan Shah, a Gorkha King, set out to unify the kingdoms. Seeking
arms and aid from India, and buying the neutrality of bordering
Indian kingdoms, he embarked on his mission in 1765. After several
bloody battles and sieges, he managed to unify the Kathmandu Valley
three years later in 1768. However, an actual battle never took
place to conquer the Kathmandu valley; it was taken over by Prithvi
Narayan and his troops without any effort, during Indra Jatra, a
festival of Newars, when all the valley's
citizens were celebrating the festival. This event marked the birth
of the modern nation of Nepal.

In 1788
the Nepalese overran Sikkim and sent a
punitive raid into Tibet.Kangra in northern India was also occupied by the
Nepalese.In 1809, Ranjit
Singh the ruler of the Sikh state in
the Punjab, had intervened and drove
the Nepalese army east of the Satluj
river.

Statue of a Gurkha soldier

At its
maximum extent, Greater Nepal extended
from the Tista River in the east, to
Kangara, across Sutlej River in the west as well as further south into the Terai
plains and north of the Himalayas than at present.A dispute
and subsequent war with Tibet over the control of mountain passes
forced the Nepalese to retreat and pay heavy reparations to
China. Rivalry between Nepal and the British East India Company over
the annexation of minor states bordering Nepal eventually led to
the Anglo-Nepalese War (1815–16).
At first the British underestimated the Nepalese and were badly
defeated until committing more military resources than they had
anticipated needing. They were greatly impressed by the valor and
competence of their adversaries. Thus began the reputation of
"Gurkhas" as fierce and ruthless soldiers.
The war
ended in the Treaty of Sugauli,
under which Nepal ceded recently-captured portions of Sikkim and lands in
Terai as well as the right to recruit
soldiers.

Factionalism inside the royal
family had led to a period of instability. In 1846
a plot was discovered revealing that the reigning queen had planned
to overthrow Jung Bahadur Rana, a
fast-rising military leader. This led to the Kot Massacre; armed clashes between military personnel and administrators loyal to the
queen led to the execution of several hundred princes and
chieftains around the country. Jung Bahadur Rana emerged victorious
and founded the Rana lineage. The king
was made a titular figure, and the post of Prime Minister was made
powerful and hereditary. The Ranas were staunchly pro-British and
assisted them during the Indian Sepoy
Rebellion in 1857 (and later in both World
Wars). The decision to help British East India Company was
taken by the Rana Regime, then led by Jang Bahadur Rana. Some parts
of the Terai Region were given back to Nepal by the British as a
friendly gesture, because of her military help to sustain British
control in India during the Sepoy
Rebellion. In 1923, the United Kingdom and Nepal formally
signed an agreement of friendship, in which Nepal's independence
was recognized by the UK.

Nepalese royalty in the 1920s

Slavery was abolished in Nepal in 1924. Nevertheless debt bondage
even involving debtors' children has been a persistent social
problem in the Terai.

In the late 1940s, newly emerging pro-democracy movements and
political parties in Nepal were critical of the Rana autocracy.
Meanwhile, with the assertion of Chinese control in Tibet in the 1950s,
India sought to counterbalance the perceived military threat from
its northern neighbour by taking pre-emptive steps to assert more
influence in Nepal. India sponsored both King Tribhuvan (ruled 1911-55) as Nepal's new ruler in
1951 and a new government, mostly comprising the Nepali Congress Party, thus
terminating Rana hegemony in the kingdom. After years of power
wrangling between the king and the government, King Mahendra (ruled 1955-72) scrapped the
democratic experiment in 1959, and a "partyless" panchayat system was made to govern Nepal until
1989, when the "Jan Andolan" (People's Movement) forced King Birendra (ruled 1972-2001) to accept
constitutional reforms and to establish a multiparty parliament
that took seat in May 1991. In 1991–92, Bhutan expelled
roughly 100,000 ethnic Nepalis, most of whom have been living in
seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal ever since.

In 1996, the Communist
Party of Nepal started a bid to replace the royal parliamentary system with a people's socialist
republic by violent means. This led to the long Nepal Civil War and more than 12,000 deaths.
On June 1, 2001, there was a massacre in the royal palace. King
Birendra, Queen Aiswarya, Crown Prince Dipendra and seven other
members of the royal family were killed. Dipendra was accused of
patricide and of committing suicide thereafter. This outburst was
alleged to have been Dipendra's response to his parents' refusal to
accept his choice of wife. Nevertheless there are speculation and
doubts among Nepalese citizens about who was responsible. Following
the carnage, Birendra's brother Gyanendra inherited the throne. On
February 1, 2005, Gyanendra dismissed the entire government and
assumed full executive powers to quash the violent Maoist movement,
but this initiative was unsuccessful because a stalemate had
developed where the Maoists were firmly entrenched in large
expanses of countryside yet could not dislodge the military
numerous towns and the largest cities. In September 2005, the
Maoists declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire in order to
negotiate.

In response to the 2006
democracy movement King Gyanendra agreed to relinquish
sovereign power to the people. On April 24, 2006 the dissolved
House of Representatives was reinstated. Using its newly acquired
sovereign authority, on May 18, 2006 the House of Representatives
unanimously voted to curtail the power of the king and declared
Nepal a secular state, ending its
time-honoured official status as a Hindu Kingdom. On December 28,
2007, a bill was passed in parliament to amend Article 159 of the
constitution — replacing "Provisions regarding the King" by
"Provisions of the Head of the State" - declaring Nepal a federal republic, and thereby abolishing
the monarchy. The bill came into force on May 28, 2008, as the
constituent assembly overwhelmingly voted to abolish royal
rule.

Republic

The Communist
Party of Nepal won the largest number of seats in the Constituent
Assembly election held on April 10, 2008 and formed a coalition
government which included most of the parties in the CA. Although
acts of violence occurred during the pre-electoral period, election
observers noted that the elections themselves were markedly
peaceful and "well-carried out."

The newly elected Assembly met in Kathmandu on May 28, 2008, and,
after a polling of 564 constituent Assembly members, 560 voted to
form a new Government, with the monarchist Rastriya Prajatantra
Party, which had four members in the assembly, registering a
dissent note. At that point, it was declared that Nepal had become
a secular and inclusive democratic republic, with the government
announcing a three-day public holiday from May 28 to 30.
The King
was thereafter given 15 days to vacate the Narayanhiti Royal Palace, in order to re-open it as a public
museum.

However, political tensions and consequent power-sharing battles
have continued in Nepal. In May 2009, the Maoist-led government was
toppled and another coalition government with all major political
parties barring the Maoists was formed. Madhav Kumar Nepal of the Communist
Party of Nepal was made the Prime Minister of the coalition
government.

Geography

Topographic map of Nepal.

Geography of Nepal is uncommonly diverse. Nepal is of roughly
trapezoidal shape, 800 kilometres (500 mi) long and 200 kilometres (125 mi) wide,
with an area of 147,181 square
kilometres (56,827 sq mi).
See
List of territories by size for the comparative size of
Nepal.

Nepal is commonly divided into three physiographic areas: the
Mountain, Hill, Siwalik region and Terai Regions. These ecological belts run
east-west and are vertically intersected by Nepal's major, north to
south flowing river systems.

The southern lowland plains or Terai bordering India are part of the
northern rim of the Indo-Gangetic
plains. They were formed and are fed by three major Himalayan
rivers: the Kosi, the Narayani, and the Karnali as well as smaller rivers rising below
the permanent snowline. This region has a subtropical to tropical
climate. The outermost range of foothills called Shiwalik or Churia Range cresting at 700 to
1,000 meters marks the limit of the Gangetic Plain, however broad,
low valleys called Inner
Tarai (Bhitri Tarai Uptyaka) lie north of these foothills in
several places.

The Hill Region (Pahad) abuts the
mountains and varies from 800 to 4,000 metres
(2,600–13,125 ft) in altitude with progression from
subtropical climates below 1,200 meters to alpine climates above
3,600 meters. The Mahabharat Lekh reaching 1,500 to 3,000 meters is the southern
limit of this region, with subtropical river valleys and "hills"
alternating to the north of this range. Population density
is high in valleys but notably less above 2,000 meters and very low
above 2,500 meters where snow occasionally falls in winter.

Nepal experiences five seasons: summer, monsoon, autumn, winter and spring. The Himalaya
blocks cold winds from Central Asia in
the winter and forms the northern limit of the monsoon wind
patterns. In a land once thickly forested, deforestation is a major
problem in all regions, with resulting erosion and degradation of
ecosystems.

Nepal is popular for mountaineering, containing some of the highest
and most challenging mountains in the world, including Mount
Everest. Technically, the south-east ridge on the Nepali side of
the mountain is easier to climb; so, most climbers prefer to trek
to Everest through Nepal. Morever Nepal has 8 of the top 10 highest
mountains of the world with postcard beauty.

Subdivisions

Subdivisions of Nepal

Nepal is divided into 14 zones and 75
districts, grouped into 5
development regions. Each district
is headed by a permanent chief district officer responsible for
maintaining law and order and coordinating the work of field
agencies of the various government ministries. The 5 regions and 14
zones are:

Neotectonics

The
collision between the Indian
subcontinent and the Eurasian
continent, which started in Paleogene
time and continues today, produced the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, a spectacular modern example of the effects of
plate tectonics. Nepal lies completely within this collision
zone, occupying the central sector of the Himalayan arc, nearly one
third of the -long Himalayas.

The Indian plate continues to move north relative to Asia at the
rate of approximately per year. Given the great magnitudes of the
blocks of the Earth's crust involved, this is remarkably fast,
about twice the speed at which human fingernails grow. As the
strong Indian continental crust subducts beneath the relatively
weak Tibetan crust, it pushes up the Himalaya mountains. This
collision zone has accommodated huge amounts of crustal shortening
as the rock sequences slide one over another.

Government and politics

Nepal has seen rapid political changes during the last two decades.
Until 1990, Nepal was a monarchy running
under the executive control of the king. Faced with a Communist
movement against the absolute monarchy, King Birendra, in 1990, agreed to large-scale
political reforms by creating a parliamentary monarchy with the king
as the head of state and a prime
minister as the head of the
government. Nepal has also been noted for its recent speed of
development, such as being one of the few countries in Asia to
abolish the death penalty and the
first country in Asia to rule in favor of same-sex marriage, which the government
has a seven-person committee studying after a November 2008 ruling by the nation's Supreme Court, which ordered full
rights for LGBT individuals, including the
right to marry.

Nepal's legislature was bicameral,
consisting of a House of
Representatives called the Pratinidhi Sabha and a National Council called the
Rastriya Sabha. The House of Representatives consisted of 205
members directly elected by the people. The National Council had 60
members: ten nominated by the king, 35 elected by the House of
Representatives, and the remaining 15 elected by an electoral
college made up of chairs of villages and towns. The legislature
had a five-year term but was dissolvable by the king before its
term could end. All Nepali citizens 18 years and older became
eligible to vote.

The executive comprised the King and the Council of Ministers (the
Cabinet). The leader of the
coalition or party securing the maximum seats in an election was
appointed as the Prime Minister. The Cabinet was appointed by the
king on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Governments in
Nepal tended to be highly unstable, falling either through internal
collapse or parliamentary dissolution by the monarch, on the
recommendation of the prime minister, according to the
constitution; no government has survived for more than two years
since 1991.

The movement in April 2006 brought about a change in the nation's
governance: an interim constitution was promulgated, with the King
giving up power, and an interim House of Representatives was formed
with Maoist members after the new government held peace talks with
the Maoist rebels. The number of parliamentary seats was also
increased to 330. In April 2007, the Communist Party of Nepal
joined the interim government of Nepal.

On April 10, 2008, the first election in Nepal for the constitution
assembly took place. The Maoist party led the
poll results but failed to gain a simple majority in the
parliament.

On December 10, 2007, the interim parliament passed a bill that
would make Nepal a federalrepublic, with the Prime Minister becoming head of state. On May 28, 2008, lawmakers in
Nepal legally abolished the monarchy and declared the country a
republic, ending 239 years of royal rule in the Himalayan nation.
The newly elected assembly, led by the former communist rebels,
adopted the resolution at its first meeting by an overwhelming
majority. King Gyanendra was given 15 days
to leave the former Royal Palace in central Kathmandu by the
Nepalese Constituent Assembly. He left the former Royal Palace on
June 11.

On June 26, 2008, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala tendered his
resignation to the Nepalese Constituent Assembly, which is also
functioning as the Nepalese Parliament; however, a new Prime
Minister has yet to be elected by the Nepalese Constituent
Assembly.

On July 19, 2008, the first round of voting for the election of the
country's president and vice president took place in the
Constituent Assembly. Parmanand Jha
became the first vice president of Nepal. However, the two
presidential frontrunners, Dr. Ram
Baran Yadav of Nepali Congress
and the Maoist-backed candidate Ram Raja Prasad Singh, both failed to
gain the minimum 298 votes needed to be elected, with Yadav
receiving 283 votes and Singh receiving 270. 578 out of 594 CA
members registered in the voter list had cast their votes, of which
24 were invalid.

On July 21, 2008, the second round of voting was held. Yadav
received 308 of the 590 votes cast, securing his election as
president.

On August 15, 2008, Maoist leader Prachanda (Pushpa
Kamal Dahal) was elected Prime Minister of Nepal, the first
since the country's transition from a monarchy to a republic. On
May 4, 2009, Mr. Pushpa Kamal Dahal resigned over on-going
conflicts over sacking of the Army chief.

Military and foreign affairs

Nepal's military consists of the Nepalese
Army, which includes the Nepalese Army Air Service (the
air force unit under it.) Nepalese Police Force is the civilian
police and the Armed Police
Force Nepal is the paramilitary force. Service is voluntary and
the minimum age for enlistment is 18 years. Nepal spends $99.2
million (2004) on its military—1.5% of its GDP. Many of the
equipment and arms are imported from India. Consequently, the USA
provided M16s M4s and other Colt weapons to combat communist
(Maoist) insurgents. As of now, the standard-issue battle rifle of
the Nepalese army is the Colt M16.

Nepal has close ties with both of its neighbours, India and China.
In accordance with a long-standing treaty, Indian and Nepalese
citizens may travel to each others' countries without a passport or visa.
Nepalese citizens may work in India without legal restriction.
Although Nepal and India typically have close ties, from time to
time Nepal becomes caught up in the problematic Sino-Indian
relationship. Recently, China has been asking Nepal to curb
protests in Nepal against China's Policy on Tibet, and on April 17, 2008,
police arrested over 500 Tibetan protestors citing a need to
maintain positive relations with China.

Terai News writes, "Being a Hindu Nation Nepal has a
permanent relation, especially with the important religious places
of the northern states of India.Religion has played a
great role in the cultural relations between Nepal and
India."

Economy

Terraced farming on the foothills of
the Himalayas.

Nepal's gross domestic product (GDP) for the
year 2008 was estimated at over US$12 billion (adjusted to Nominal GDP), making it the 115th-largest
economy in the world. Agriculture accounts for about 40% of Nepal's
GDP, services comprise 41%
and industry 22%. Agriculture employs 76% of the workforce,
services 18% and manufacturing/craft-based industry 6%.
Agricultural produce — mostly grown in the Terai region bordering India — includes tea, rice, corn, wheat, sugarcane, root crops,
milk, and water
buffalo meat. Industry mainly involves the processing of
agricultural produce, including jute,
sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. Its workforce of about 10 million
suffers from a severe shortage of skilled labour. The spectacular
landscape and diverse, exotic cultures of Nepal represent
considerable potential for tourism, but growth in this hospitality
industry has been stifled by recent political events. The rate of unemployment and underemployment
approaches half of the working-age population. Thus many Nepali
citizens move to India in search of work; the Gulf countries and
Malaysia being new sources of work. Nepal receives US$50 million a
year through the Gurkha soldiers who serve in
the Indian and British armies and are highly esteemed for
their skill and bravery. The total remittance value is worth around
US$1 billion, including money sent from the Persian Gulf and
Malaysia, who combined employ around 700,000 Nepali citizens. A
long-standing economic agreement underpins a close relationship
with India. The country receives foreign aid from India, Japan, the
United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, China,
Switzerland, and Scandinavian countries. Poverty is acute;
per-capita income is less than US$470. The distribution of wealth among the
Nepalis is consistent with that in many developed and developing
countries: the highest 10% of households control 39.1% of the
national wealth and the lowest 10% control only 2.6%.

The government's budget is about US$1.153 billion, with
expenditures of $1.789 billion (FY05/06). The Nepalese rupee has been tied to the Indian Rupee at an exchange rate of 1.6 for
many years. Since the loosening of exchange rate controls in the
early 1990s, the black market for foreign exchange has all but
disappeared. The inflation rate has
dropped to 2.9% after a period of higher inflation during the
1990s.

Nepal remains isolated from the world's major land, air and sea
transport routes although, within the country, aviation is in a
better state, with 48 airports, ten of them with paved runways;
flights are frequent and support a sizable traffic. The hilly and
mountainous terrain in the northern two-thirds of the country has
made the building of roads and other infrastructure difficult and
expensive. There were just over 8,500 km of paved roads, and
one 59-km railway line in the south in 2003. There is only one
reliable road route from India to the Kathmandu Valley.The only practical seaport of entry for
goods bound for Kathmandu is Calcutta in India. Internally, the poor state of
development of the road system (22 of 75 administrative districts
lack road links) makes volume distribution unrealistic. Besides
having landlocked, rugged geography, few tangible natural resources
and poor infrastructure, the long-running civil war is also a
factor in stunting the economic growth.

There is less than one telephone per 19 people. Landline telephone
services are not adequate nationwide but are concentrated in cities
and district headquarters. Mobile telephony is in a reasonable
state in most parts of the country with increased accessibility and
affordability; there were around 175,000 Internet connections in
2005. After the imposition of the "state of emergency",
intermittent losses of service-signals were reported, but
uninterrupted Internet connections have resumed after Nepal's
second major people's revolution to overthrow the King's absolute
power.

Demographics

The
Nepalese are descendants of three major migrations from India,
Tibet, and North Burma and
Yunnan via
Assam.

In the
Terai, a part of the GangesBasin with 20% of the land, much of the
population is physically and culturally similar to the Indo-Aryans of northern India. Indo-Aryan
and East Asian looking mixed people live
in the hill region. Indo-Aryan ancestry has been a source of
prestige in Nepal for centuries, and the ruling families have been
of Indo-Aryan and Hindu background. The
mountainous highlands are sparsely populated. Kathmandu Valley, in
the middle hill region, constitutes a small fraction of the
nation's area but is the most densely populated, with almost 5% of
the population.

Nepal is a multilingual
society.These data are largely derived from Nepal's 2001 census
results published in the Nepal Population Report
2002.

According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by
the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Nepal hosted a
population of refugees and asylum seekers
in 2007 numbering approximately 130,000. Of this population,
approximately 109,200 persons were from Bhutan and 20,500
from People's
Republic of China.The government of Nepal restricted Bhutanese
refugees to seven camps in the Jhapa and
Morang districts,
and refugees were not permitted to work in most professions.At
present, the United
States is working towards resettling more than 60,000 of
these refugees in the US.

Despite the migration of a significant section of the population to
the southern plains or terai in recent years, the majority of the
population still lives in the central highlands. The northern
mountains are sparsely populated.

Kathmandu, with a population of around 800,000 (metropolitan area:
1.5 million), is the largest city in the country.

Religion

The overwhelming majority in Nepal follow Hinduism. Shiva is regarded as
the guardian deity of the country. Nepal is home to the largest Shiva temple in the world, the famous PashupatinathTemple, where Hindus from all over the world come for
pilgrimage. According to mythology, SitaDevi of the epic Ramayana was born in the Mithila Kingdom of King
Janaka Raja.

Near the
Indian border, Lumbini, is a Buddhist
pilgrimage site and UNESCOWorld Heritage Site site in the Kapilavastu district. It is held to be the birthplace in
about 563 B.C. of Siddhartha
Gautama, a Kshatriya caste prince of the Sakya clan, who, as
the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the
Buddhist tradition. The holy site of
Lumbini is bordered by a large monastic zone, in which only
monasteries can be built. All three main branches of Buddhism exist
in Nepal and the Newar people have their own branch of the faith. Buddhism is the dominant
religion of the thinly-populated northern areas, which are
inhabited by Tibetan-related peoples, such as the Sherpa.

The Buddha, born as a Hindu, is also said to be a descendant of
VedicSage
Angirasa in many Buddhist texts. The Buddha's family surname is
associated with Gautama Maharishi.
Differences between Hindus and Buddhists have been minimal in Nepal
due to the cultural and historical intermingling of Hindu and
Buddhist beliefs. Morever traditionally Buddhism and Hinduism were
never two distinct religions in western sense of wrold. In Nepal,
the faiths share common temples and worship common deities. Among
other natives of Nepal, those more influenced by Hinduism were the
Magar, Sunwar,
Limbu and Rai and the Gurkhas. Hindu influence is less prominent among the
Gurung, Bhutia, and
Thakali groups who employ Buddhist monks for
their religious ceremonies. Most of the festivals in Nepal are
Hindu. The Machendrajatra festival, dedicated to Hindu ShaivaSiddha, is celebrated
by many Buddhists in Nepal as a main festival. As it is believed
that Ne Muni established Nepal, some
important priests in Nepal are called "Tirthaguru Nemuni".

Health

The fertility rate in Nepal was at 3.7 births per woman in the
early 2000s.

Public expenditure on health was at 1.5 % of the GDP in 2004. Private expenditure on health was 4.1 % in 2004. In the early 2000s, there were 21 physicians per 100,000 people.

Culture

A typical Nepalese meal is dal-bhat-tarkari. Dal
is a spicy lentil soup, served over bhat (boiled rice),
served with tarkari (curried vegetables) together with
achar (pickles) or chutni (spicy condiment made
from fresh ingredients).. The Newar community,
however, has its own unique cuisine. It consists of non-vegetarian
as well as vegetarian items served with alcoholic and non-alcoholic
beverages. Mustard oil is the cooking medium and a host of spices,
such as cumin, coriander, black peppers, sesame seeds, turmeric,
garlic, ginger, methi (fenugreek), bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon,
pepper, chillies, mustard seeds, etc., are used in the cooking. The
cuisine served on festivals is generally the best.

The Newari Music orchestra consists mainly of
percussion instruments, though wind instruments, such as flutes and
other similar instruments, are also used. String instruments are
very rare. There are songs pertaining to particular seasons and
festivals. Paahan chare music is probably the fastest played music
whereas the Dapa the slowest. There are certain musical instruments
such as Dhimay and Bhusya which are played as instrumental only and
are not accompanied with songs. The dhimay music is the loudest
one. In the hills, people enjoy their own kind of music, playing
saarangi (a string instrument), madal and flute. They also have
many popular folk songs known as lok geet and lok
dohari.

The Newar dances can be broadly classified into masked dances and
non-masked dances. The most representative of Newari dances is
Lakhey dance. Almost all the settlements of
Newaris organise Lakhey dance at least once a
year, mostly in the Goonlaa month. So, they are called Goonlaa
Lakhey. However, the most famous Lakhey dance is the Majipa Lakhey dance; it is performed by the
Ranjitkars of Kathmandu and the
celeberation continues for the entire week that contains the full
moon of Yenlaa month. The Lakhey are considered to be the saviors
of children.

Folklore is an integral part of Nepalese society. Traditional
stories are rooted in the reality of day-to-day life, tales of
love, affection and battles as well as demons and ghosts and thus
reflect local lifestyles, cultures and beliefs. Many Nepalese
folktales are enacted through the medium of dance and music.

The Nepali year begins in mid-April and is divided into 12 months.
Saturday is the official weekly holiday. Main annual holidays
include the National Day, celebrated on the birthday of the king
(December 28), Prithvi Jayanti (January 11), Martyr's Day (February
18), and a mix of Hindu and Buddhist festivals such as dashain in autumn, and tihar in late autumn. During tihar,
the Newar community also celebrates its New Year as per their local
calendar Nepal Sambat.

Most houses in rural lowland of Nepal are made up of a tight bamboo
framework and walls of a mud and cow-dung mix. These dwellings
remain cool in summer and retain warmth in winter. Houses in the
hills are usually made of unbaked bricks with thatch or tile
roofing. At high elevations construction changes to stone masonry
and slate may be used on roofs.

Nepal's flag is the only national flag in the
world that is non-quadrilateral in
shape, and one of only two non-rectangular flags in use (the other
being the flag of the U.S. state of Ohio).
According to its official description, the red in the flag stands
for victory in war or courage, and is also color of the rhododendron, the national flower of Nepal. Red
also stands for aggression. The flag's blue border signifies peace.
The curved moon on the flag is a symbol of the peaceful and calm
nature of Nepalese, while the sun represents the aggressiveness of
Nepalese warriors.

Education

About two thirds of female adults and one third of male adults are
literate. Net primary enrolment rate was 74 % in 2005. It now is at
about 90 %. In 2009 the World Bank has
decided to contribute a further US$130 million towards meeting
Nepal’s Education for All goals. Nepal has several
universities.